


Stay, please

by martianwahtney



Series: p l e a s e [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 03:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6937960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martianwahtney/pseuds/martianwahtney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>where Tony has a lot of emotions, and his friends try to help. Or where Nat's seriously not having any of this shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay, please

     To put it mildly Natasha was surprised when she walked into the kitchen on her personal floor to find Tony standing there looking effortlessly disheveled in one of his business suit’s. She figured he must have come from an SI meeting. There was a glass of what looked like whiskey in one of his hands, Nat looked at Tony again, trying to assess if the man was drunk or not. She hadn’t seen the man take a sip of alcohol in months. He finally met her gaze, there was a soft clink as he set the drink on the counter.

    “He killed my parents,” Tony said casually.

     Nat knew what he was doing. He was attempting to downplay his emotions with the casual tone. She’d seen him do it before, back when she was playing his assistant and he’d asked her what she’d do if she was celebrating her last birthday. It was the same casual tone that only _just_ managed to mask the pain in his voice.

     “My mom,” Tony looked away from her and back down to the glass of whiskey on the counter, his fingers dancing over the glass rim.

     “When did you find out?” Nat questioned.

     What she meant was, ‘ _How long have you been living with this knowledge without reaching out to anyone_?”.

     “Few weeks ago.”

      _Oh god Tony_.

     “And you’ve kept this to yourself?”

      _Have you been suffering alone_ , she wondered.

     “Yes,” his voice was quiet, like he was afraid she was going to get mad at him, or yell at him. Nat had half a mind to, of course, no one should have to deal with that kind of information on their own. But Tony looked so defeated, she couldn’t.

     “You still like him,” she stated.

     Tony hardly reacted to her statement.

     “I shouldn’t- Nat… my _mom_.”

     Tony never talked about his parents. When Nat was playing his assistant there had been more than one note about how she should never bring up Howard or Maria, she figured it was because he had a volatile relationship with his father, or that their death’s didn’t affect him all that much. But god, Tony must’ve loved his mother.

     “She taught me how to play the piano,” he admitted.

     Tony could play the piano? How much more was there to this man?

     “He was brainwashed, y’know. That’s what keeps going through my head. He was forced into doing it. He feels like shit about it, I know he does, and I hate seeing him like this- he really doesn’t deserve it Nat. And he was brainwashed- fuck he was tortured into it. I know if I call Rhodes he’d say the same fucking thing,- but god that was my mom,”

     Nat just watched him carefully, and tried to ignore the way the back of her eye’s started to sting. The similarities slapped her in her face. A brainwashed assassin, trained to be merciless, was saved by the person they assumed to be their enemy. For Nat it had been Clint, and SHIELD. For Bucky it was Steve, and Tony.

     “I’ve been forced to do things I didn’t want to do,” his voice was a gentle murmur. Nat inclined her head gently. Afghanistan. Another thing she was warned not to bring up around him.

     “I watched weapons that I produced kill innocent people-”

     “Tony you can’t blame yourself for that,” Natasha’s voice was firm.

     Tony’s low opinion of his own self worth always scared her. Tony just laughed brokenly, once more he played with the glass of whiskey on the counter, he still hadn’t taken a sip of it.

     “Sorry I barged into your personal floor,” he stated, he tore his gaze from the glace and met Natasha’s dark gaze. She recognized the tone of his voice, he was getting ready to leave. She gripped his arm gently as he attempted to pass her.

     “Call Rhodes, please, you don’t have to go through this alone,” she urged. Tony turned his head and searched her gaze carefully.

     “I took another look at your Widow Bites, I think I can make them better,” he replied offhandedly. Natasha let go of his arm and watched him walk away.

     Natasha slowly walked over to the glass of whiskey, Tony hadn’t taken a sip of it. He’d just poured himself a glass. She made a move to toss the alcohol down the drain when a chilling thought occurred to her. She knew that Howard and Maria had been murdered by HYDRA, she and Steve learned that from Zola. Her blood still boiled at the thought of the Swiss scientist. She’d always assumed that Steve told Tony. Steve wouldn’t withhold this kind of information from one of his teammates. Especially not Tony. God not Tony. He and Steve had grown so close. Steve wouldn’t do this.

    Would he?

–

     The next day Natasha found a set of nice, new Widow Bites on the counter in her kitchen. They were a ‘thank you’ from Tony, just for listening to him.

–

     It had been approximately 41 hours, and 28 minutes since Tony started talking to Bucky again. It had been a rough start, but Tony was glad he had Bucky back in his life.

     The two walked down the hallway towards the communal kitchen, their shoulders kept brushing together. There were small, dumb, secretive smiles on their faces that grew every time it happened. It was only when they reached the living room when they stopped. Nat and Steve were there. Nat wasn’t exactly yelling at Steve, but she was furious, Tony had never seen so much emotion on her face before. She was speaking a language that Tony didn’t quite understand, and he understood a lot of languages (six, to be exact), Maria had taught them to him. Whatever the language was he hadn’t learned it from his mother, but he must have studied it in one of his ‘I-can-be-smart-at-everything-not-just-engineering’ fits because he recognized some of the words. The words ‘ _parents_ ’, ‘ _road_ ’, and ‘ _funeral_ ’ jumped out at him. Tony almost continued on his way to the kitchen, he probably shouldn’t listen in on the argument, but then Nat said Howard’s name, and then Bucky’s. It didn’t take long for Tony to figure out what Nat was saying.

     “Did you know?” Tony asked quietly.

     Steve turned around to see Tony and Bucky, his face pale. Nat looked slightly horrified and god Tony tried to pretend that there weren’t tears in her eyes.

     “Steve,” Tony pressed. His heart started to hammer in his chest. He almost reached up to touch the arc reactor before he remembered that it wasn’t there anymore. He just stared at his friend’s face. There’s no fucking way Steve kept something like that from him. Not after all the shit Steve gave him about keeping things from the team.

     “Rogers did you know about my parents?”

     “Yes- but Tony I didn’t know that Bucky-”

     “But you knew?” and god damn it Tony wasn’t going to cry in front of any of them. ‘ _Stark men have iron in their blood, Tony_ ’ his father once told him.

     “Tony-” Steve tried, his face broken and raw.

     “No,” Tony didn’t want to hear it. He turned away from Steve and for just a second he met Bucky’s dark blue gaze. Tony headed right for the elevator.

–

     Tony didn’t have a set destination in mind when he started driving, he just drove. He ignored his phone, he didn’t want to look at it. Three hours of mindless driving, 21 ignored phone calls, and 173 ignored texts later, Tony pulled into a parking space and turned off his car. He got out of the car, and for a second he just stared at the building in front of him. Of course he would drive to DC. He shut the car door, locked it, and made his way inside. He knew exactly where he was going even though it had been more than a few months since he’d been in the building. He headed up to the second floor. When he walked in he was surprised to find she was awake, the occupant in the bed turned to see Tony.

     “Hello, Aunty Peggy,” he said quietly.

     The older woman smiled brilliantly, she held out her hand, beckoning him closer. Tony crossed the room to take her hand, he gave it a gentle squeeze as he sat down next to her bed.

     “What brings you here, ducky?” she questioned. Her dark eyes were kind, and full of love. Tony lifted her hand up to kiss it gently, wondering how much he should tell her- how much she could take.

     “Ducky? What’s the matter?”

     Tony confessed everything. His Aunt Peggy listened quietly, and gave him her full attention. She didn’t look too shocked to hear that his parent’s death hadn’t really been an accident, nor did she seemed surprised to hear that Tony wasn’t exactly straight. She did, however, seem surprised that Steve knew about his parents and didn’t say a damn thing. Once he finished a loud silence hung in the air.

     “Enough about me, how are you doing Aunty? Everyone’s treating you right? Any complaints? I can put you in a different facility-”

     “Ducky,” she interrupted quietly. Tony just stared at her. She squeezed his hand gently and adjusted her head on her fluffy pillow.

     “James Buchanan Barnes, hm?”

     “Yes.”

     “I wouldn’t have minded some of him back in the day,”

     “ _Auntie_ ,” Tony didn’t bother to try and keep the shocked smile off his face. Peggy smiled back at him.

     “You seem very happy with him,” she stated.

     “We’re not really… yea,” he admitted.

     “You deserve to be happy, Ducky. And believe me, I’ll be having some words with Rogers the next time I see him,” she told him. Tony smiled again, Peggy searched his face for a long time before she spoke again.

     “I am sorry about your parents, Tony.” Tony closed his eyes and tried to swallow around the lump in his throat. He didn’t realize how badly he needed to hear those words.

     “Me too,” he said quietly.

–

     Tony drove home feeling immeasurably better than he had on the drive to Peggy’s retirement home. He only checked his phone when he got back to the Tower, nearly all the message’s were from Steve, Tony didn’t want to look at those texts, nor did he want to hear those messages. Not yet. Tony stepped into his lab, he slipped his phone into his pocket and looked around his lab, wondering what project he should start on next. He caught sight of Bucky in the corner with Dum-E. Bucky was grinning widely, Dum-E sounded excited. Tony’s stomach did something funny. He decided to finish up some of the things SI had been demanding from him.

–

     ‘ _She’s gone, Tony, it happened in her sleep_ ’

     It had only been 8 days since Tony visited his Aunty Peggy. Tony should have realized- it was a good day for her, a very good day, and bad things always followed the good days. God Peggy had always seemed indestructible to him, even after the Alzheimer’s diagnosis she was still so _Peggy_. Now she was gone and Tony wasn’t really prepared for any of it. Tony looked at the message again, hoping that he read it wrong, but he didn’t. Peggy was dead. Tony threw his phone toward the glass wall of his lab. The glass shattered, the phone did not. (Fucking Stark technology).

–

     Bucky stared helplessly at Tony and Steve. It had been three day’s since Peggy’s death, there were two day’s till the funeral. When Tony spoke he babbled. Steve didn’t talk. There was a ding from the elevator. Tony continued to stare at his untouched mug of black coffee. There was the sound of heavy footsteps, and what sounded like a cane. Bucky turned to see a dark skinned man walk into the room- Colonel James Rhodes, Tony’s best friend.

     “Rhodes?” Tony demanded as he stood up.

     “I came as soon as I heard,” Tony rounded the table and approached his friend.

     “How you doing cupcake? You’re walking again- that’s good. You want me to upgrade the-”

     “Tony I’m here for you,” Rhodey said slowly.

     “Oh come on plum sauce, I can make them better-”

     “You’re more important to me than your tech is Tones, ok, that’s always how it’s going to be,” Rhodey stated. Tony nodded slowly.

     Rhodey turned to Bucky. The ex-assassin was acutely aware that James Rhodes was the most important thing in Tony’s life, and vice versa.

     “You must be Sergeant Barnes, Tony’s told me all about you,” Rhodey stated. Bucky knew in an instant that Rhodey knew about everything.

     “Colonel,” Bucky greeted quietly, he made an attempt at a smile.

      _Oh god please don’t tell Tony that he should stay away from me, I’m trying so damn hard_.

     “You’re right Tones, he does have a nice smile,” there was a smug smile on Rhodey’s face. Tony was actually blushing. Bucky wanted to take a picture of the sight.

     “You know I haven’t blushed since 1992, pumpkin?”

     “I know,” Rhodes replied.

-

     Bucky stood next to Tony. The engineer had been oddly quiet and stoic during the funeral, his face devoid of any emotion. The funeral had been over for a few hours now, the grave had been filled with dirt, but still Tony stood there, just staring at the gravestone. Bucky let his shoulder brush against Tony’s, just to let him know he was there.

     “I told her about us,” Tony said quietly.

     There was no use in pretending that there was nothing going on between them.

     “Us?” Bucky’s voice caught in his throat.

     “You,” Tony amended.

     “Us,” Bucky liked the sound of that.

     Tony’s hand brushed against Bucky’s metal one, almost automatically Bucky reached out to take Tony’s hand.

     “Are you ready to go?”

     “Not yet,” Tony replied.

     “Do you want me to stay?”

     “Please.”

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted to my tumblr!  
> [](http://anthonystarhk.tumblr.com>here!</a>)


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